Meaningful First Nations engagement is essential for a prosperous Canada
Responsible natural resource development is possible only through building and sustaining open, fair and honest relationships with First Nations.
Engagement between industry and First Nations is essential in the development of numerous mining, forestry and construction projects across the country. But it’s not enough for business and industry simply to be involved in First Nations engagement on a surface level.
For First Nations engagement to be positive and truly meaningful, the partnerships that are forged must be mutually beneficial. As the fastest growing population in Canada, First Nations communities have a huge part to play in every aspect of the country’s culture and economy.
Building relationships
“First Nations engagement is a process by which a company engages a First Nation upon whose traditional territory it seeks to initiate a resource extraction or economic development initiative,” explains Brenda Ireland, CEO of Industry Council for Aboriginal Business. “Engagement starts early — ideally before the project moves into any formal process, such as Environmental Assessment.”
Ireland believes that meaningful engagement goes far beyond the consultation guidelines set out by both the federal and provincial governments.“Driven by process and timelines rather than meaningful engagement, the consultation guidelines fail to facilitate mutually- beneficial working relationships,” she says. “Meaningful engagement needs to include the standard of free and informed consent as set out by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Meaningful engagement
Well- structured, meaningful engagement allows the First Nations community to familiarize themselves with the company that wants to work in their territory, and the people who represent it. It’s important for community members to gain an understanding of how the company is connected to the land; both the land they want to develop and the land they call home.
“Meaningful engagement is important because once the community knows that the company and its people walk in an authentic — in a ‘ good’— way, they can begin to trust, build relationships, and then talk business,” says Ireland.
Grand Chief Edward John, a Hereditary Chief of Tl’azt’en Nation located on the banks of the Nak’al Bun ( Stuart Lake) in northern B. C., believes that, from a First Nation’s perspective, meaningful engagement is important because it allows communities to access all of the pertinent information. “You need to have that information to make informed decisions about whether to support a project or not,” says Chief John.
Steps forward
Chief John has seen successful partnerships being formed in the forestry, fishing and mining industries, but he does point out that, at this stage, these partnerships are rather limited. Despite this, Chief John does feel that there is a movement towards forging more partnerships that achieve meaningful engagement.
“In the forestry industry we see lots of examples where First Nations and forest companies have partnered and engaged in businesses that have created job and business opportunities for First Nations peoples,” says Chief John.
“Meaningful engagement begins with trust and relationship building. It encompasses a sharing of values and worldviews,
ideas and feelings, priorities and concerns, benefits and challenges and is transparent, accountable and consistent.”
A move towards meaningful engagement becoming the norm is in its infancy, according to Chief John: these things take time. Although, there is definitely a willingness on the part of First Nations to come together with business and industry to create further opportunities for people within the community.
“First Nations communities are definitely interested in securing business opportunities to provide live- lihoods and jobs, so that people can feed their families and build their homes,” says Chief John. “I see First Nations people being involved on corporate tables, members of boards, helping to shape corporate business plans: this is what we need to see.”